Thankfully the NYT did not get David Itzkoff to write their obituary of Sir Arthur. Gerald Jonas does a fine job but, primed by Ron Hogan, I did spot one glaring typo. I have, of course, made embarrassing mistakes like that myself in the past, so Mr. Jonas has my sympathy, but he needs a better proof reader.
Science Fiction
Farewell Sir Arthur
The news about Sir Arthur came in while I was in the air. Kevin told me when I phoned him on landing. Despite the fact that we came from the same small part of the UK, I never met him. My father knew him in the RAF during the war, and claimed that the other radar guys thought that Clarke guy was crazy. As we all know now, he wasn’t. SF authors can rarely be accused of prescience, but Sir Arthur did a lot better than most. There are plenty of obituaries all over the blogosphere, so I’ll just leave it as saying we’ll miss him very much.
Worlds of Fantasy II
Well, The Guardian was right, part 2 of the BBC’s Worlds of Fantasy series was much better than the first. Indeed, I’m almost moved to suggest that they were written by two different people, because the first program claimed that fantasy literature was invented in the 19th Century whereas this one traces it all the way back to Beowulf.
The program looks solely at Tolkien and Peake, which is a very reasonable thing to do, and it makes all of the usual arguments about the differing styles of the two men and their worlds, about the influence of the 20th Century’s great wars on their lives, and about their legacy in fantasy fiction today. I was pleased to see Tom Shippey get a chance to talk about Tolkien. Diana Wynne Jones (who apparently attended Tolkien’s classes at Oxford) gets interviewed in what looks like Wookey Hole. There are good contributions from China (again), from Joe Abercrombie (who looks like he’d make a great con panelist) and Joanne Harris. Toyah Wilcox also makes useful contributions, but my favorite guest slot came from John Sessions who playfully compares the House of Lords to Gormenghast.
All in all I’m now rather sad that I won’t get to see part 3. Hopefully someone out there will watch it and report on it.
Gig Report – The Tentacles at Oakland Arena
A piece of silliness inspired by Jeff VanderMeer.
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Calling Londo Mollari
California astronomers say their computer models predict that there is a very good chance that there is a habitable Earth-like plant orbiting Alpha Centauri.
Feminist Conspiracy
Over at the excellent Biology in Science Fiction blog, Peggy gives the lowdown on the real science behind methods of populating the world without the need for men. It is all an evil plot, of course, concocted by the Secret Feminist Cabal for the express purpose of oppressing Republicans, religious fundamentalists and geek boys who can’t get a girl. The only way to save the world is to vote for Ru Ron Paul for President.
Solaris Goes East
Through attending events such as Finncon and Eurocon I have come into contact with a number of Russian SF fans. I know that SF flourishes in Russia. There are, as I understand it, at least 400 SF books published there every year. And yet I am only familiar with the work one contemporary Russian author, and that’s because Ekaterina Sedia lives in the USA and writes in English. There must be a lot of wonderful fiction that I am missing out on. Which is why I am pleased to hear that Comrade Mann and his apparatchiks are to produce The Solaris Book of Soviet Science Fiction. Not that our Russian friends are Soviets these days, but hopefully this will open the doors to a bit more Russian SF.
Cities of the Future
The History Channel has been running a competition for architectural designs for futuristic cities. The winning designs for Washington, D.C., San Francisco, and Atlanta have been chosen, and it is now up to the public to vote on the final winner. You can see the San Francisco design here. (You wouldn’t want to vote for anywhere else, would you?)
Sadly there were no proposals for Flower Cities.
Planet Hunting Close to Home
Earlier this week a schoolgirl from Montana won a National Geographic contest to think of a mnemonic that could be used to memorize the 11 planets of the solar system. Unfortunately for Maryn Smith her fame could be short lived, because it seems that there is yet another mystery planet hiding in the nether reaches of the solar system.
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Mind That Wormhole!
The Independent’s science columnist asks whether travelers from the future will be visiting Geneva soon (with help from a picture of a police box).
Respectable At Last?
Today’s Times has a long review of the new edition of Brian Aldiss’s A Science Fiction Omnibus. The article, by Dinah Birch, professor of English Literature at Liverpool University, is basically an excuse to talk about science fiction and its place within literature. Money shot:
The evolution of science fiction is one of the most heartening aspects of contemporary literature. Old prejudices should not deter new readers, and this anthology offers abundant material for anyone wanting to make a start.
Now I guess we wait for the squeals of horror from people who want to go back into the ghetto.
Organlegging
One of the staple themes of cyberpunk is that in “the future” people will make money by selling their bodily organs (or by stealing other peoples). Well, we are in the future, and organlegging is apparently big business in India.
the police said the scale of this one was unprecedented. Four doctors, five nurses, 20 paramedics, three private hospitals, 10 pathology clinics and five diagnostic centers were involved
And this despite the fact that it is illegal.
Positively Positronic
You know that old pulp thing about how our heroes are flying through the galaxy and they see a cloud up ahead, and it turns out to be anti-matter? Well it turns out that there is a big cloud of anti-matter at the center of our galaxy. Truly, we live in a science-fictional world.
Chicken Little Arrives
It appears that the FDA is about to approve the sale of meat and milk from cloned animals (despite fears from consumer and environmentalist groups that such foodstuffs might contain “chemicals”).
Talking About Us
Via John Scalzi and Charlie Anders (email) I have learned about a new, high-profile SF blog: io9. Scalzi points out that it is run by the same people who do various famous celebrity blogs, none of which I have heard of because the only time I ever notice gossip mags is when I’m queuing at the checkout in grocery stores. He speculates that the blog will be full of salacious stories about just which author had lunch which other author at Worldcon and all that sort of stuff, and gets his knuckles rapped by PNH for his trouble.
Having had a quick look at the site, the thing that interests me is that it is really about SF being more mainstream. I don’t think it will notice “the community” much at all. I expect the site to target itself mainly at people who watch sci-fi TV and movies, at comic readers, and at people who follow top-selling fantasy books like the Harry Potter series. The post on Spiderman is spot-on. Classic tabloid headline, and it is something people are talking about (I was in my local Borders yesterday and the staff were having a long and animated conversation about it).
But you know, it being about SF, why can’t it be a little bit more creative? There is this huge gap in my life due to the demise of the Weekly World News. And in SF anything can happen. So what if it is made up? I’m looking forward to posts about how Scalzi is pregnant with David Brin’s love child, and Jeff VanderMeer is secretly Bat Boy. (Stories about the Apocalypse will have to wait because, as Jay Lake pointed out this morning, it has already happened.)
Last Post of the Year
For most of the planet it is already 2008. Here in California we have only a few minutes of 2007 left. There will, of course, be come people out in the Pacific for whom the old year still lingers, but I don’t suppose that I’ll be reading any of their blogs, so here goes with the end of the year.
My prize for the best New Year post of 2007 goes to John Coulthart who linked to this web site devoted to the unfashionable idea of thinking long term.
Now you may think that this sort of thinking is just the sort of nonsense that rich and foolish people in San Francisco get up to, and to a certain extent you are right. I’m pretty sure that the Long Now folks make a lot of their money through expensive seminars. But if you have a look through their site you’ll also come across this fabulous essay (PDF) by Michael Chabon which puts the case for the long term rather better than any of the futurologists. It also proves, if the question was still open, that Chabon is indeed what fandom likes to call “one of us”.
And now I have just enough time to go and pour a glass of Balvenie before the fireworks start.
Wise Men and Lots of Stars
The reason that we watch the skies is that sometimes the universe does things that are just awesome, such as this.
And don’t you just love the fact that the scientist that ESO credits for the picture is a M. Henri Boffin?
More Japanese Robots
Continuing what appears to have become today’s theme, I discover that National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo is running The Great Robot Exhibition over the next few weeks. John Coulthart has the scoop.
Clockwork crab robot. Want, want, want…
A Train Post for Kevin (with Robots)
Well, the Japanese may or may not be building giant fighting robots to protect us from UFOs, but the Russians are most definitely building androids. No, this is not a robot army intended to invade the USA, nor is it a cunning plot to create citizens programmed to believe in Communism. The androids are apparently to be put to work maintaining Russia’s railways. Why they need to be able to talk and dance is unclear, but given how fond the Russians are of SF, perhaps we should not be surprised. Maybe one or two of Russia’s new metal citizens will be allowed to attend next year’s Eurocon, Mr. Putin, please.
Japan to Defend World from Aliens?
According to recent news reports, Japan’s Defense Minister is concerned that his country has no plans for dealing with alien invasions. Kevin and I rather hope that he will recommend building a corps of giant fighting robots (though whether they should be crewed by cute teenage girls is a debatable point). Of course such defense systems will need to be tested, so perhaps Godzilla could be persuaded to visit Tokyo to give them a work-out. It would make good TV.